Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Map of the Week-Enclavistan

A recent article in The Economist, titled The Land that Maps Forgot highlights the complex nature of the northern border between India and Bangladesh. The countries have been negotiating a possible land swap in order to solve the problem of enclaves - islands of Indian and Bangladeshi territory within the opposite country. There are also counter enclaves (islands within islands) as well as the world's only counter-counter enclave.

This detail of the Cooch Behar district shows the border with Indian enclaves in pink and Bangladeshi enclaves in green. Some counter enclaves are apparent such as the ones numbered 33 and 41. These are Bangladeshi areas within Bangladesh, but surrounded by Indian territory.

The full map is shown below. The age of this map is not clear from the article or from its source page but Bangladesh is "East Pakistan" so it's at least 40 years old and may date back to the original partition of Pakistan.

Thanks to my brother (aka "your brother") for his diligent reading of The Economist.